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Dear All,
The Galerie de Lâ€™Ã” is a ceramic art gallery based in Brussels. We have been promoting this flourishing art movement for years not only through our permanent exhibition, but most especially thanks to our annual Ceramic Event. We will celebrate its 8th edition this year.
Eve Vaucheret
WHEN:
23/09 - 01/10, 12:30-18:00
WHERE:
Av MoliÃ¨re 139
1190 Forest
Brussels, Belgium
This event has been running since 2011 and has gained popularity and recognition since then, each year the number of visitors increasing. We have hosted dozens of ceramic artists, artisans, performers, and even put in place an outdoors ceramic market.
This year we will present an exhibition of over 60 artists with their unconventional ceramic work, a focus on jewelry, an incredible visual performance which ties the body to the earth, as well as an artshop to make way to beauty within practicality, and more.
Kim Myung-Joo
Unique artworks from over 60 ceramists
Atsuhi Kitahara
Discover beauty within everyday objects at the event's artshop
Trinidad Contreras
This year, the role which ceramics have in jewerly will be questioned and reimagined
From the CORPS EN SCÃˆNE association, an incredible perfomance in which the textures of the body and of the clay come together
The event leaves a unique place to the works on the margin of a traditional ceramic art, and is both a reference for professionals and an eclectic and captivating initiation for amateurs and newcomers. Open to all, the Ceramic Event VIII is ready to surprise everyone with this thriving art.
More at www.facebook.com/ceramic-event

I'm working on performance plans for 2015, and was trying to figure out what level of productivity I can expect from my employees. I'll provide some background and if anyone has any insight I would appreciate your comments / input. We can fire 61 mugs in a single bisque / glaze firing. And, I want to fire a glaze every other day. So, I need 61 mugs made, dried, and ready for bisque every other day. When the bisque is complete, I glaze those mugs, and fire glaze the same day. We typically run 3 bisque and 3 glaze, but can run 4 of each during a rush, like now. So I need to move 61 pieces into the kilns every other day, which means I need to have the pieces assembled and drying about 48 hours in advance of bisque.
To keep that pace I need to assemble 61 pieces a day (hand builders). Right now I'm at 32 to 40 pieces per day assembled. My wheel potters out pace my hand builders and then switch over to hand building to clear the backlog.
Wheel Potter:
1. How many cylinders should a potter with about 7 to 10 years in clay be able to throw in an hour?
Each cylinder uses approximately 2.75 lbs of clay
No handle attachment
Throws cylinder on small square bat, moves the bat and form to a shelf
Fills 12 forms per shelf
Cart hold 7 shelves
2. Each potter trims his / her own cylinders
Bottom of cylinder is flat, no foot cut into floor of cylinder
Lower sidewalls need to trimmed on about 1 out of 5 forms
Curved foot ring cut into sidewall at foot using rib template
Trimming generally occurs on day after throwing
Trimmed forms placed into damp box and transferred to hand building
Hand Builder:
1. How many mugs can a hand builder assemble in a hour / day?
Pulls empty shelf from drying rack and places on bench
Removes trimmed cylinders from damp box and places on bench
Extrudes handles
Shapes extrusions to form using jig / template
Rolls slabs for tiles in slab roller
Strikes slabs with die, and cuts tiles used as surface design
Attaches tile using slip / score technique
Attaches handle to cylinder using slip / score at upper / lower join
Cuts triangular thumb rest and attaches to top of handle using slip & score technique
Inspects work, cleans up crumbs, scratches, dents, canvass marks, etc.
Places assembled mug on shelf, completes 12, and returns shelf to drying rack
This is the process we use today. I understand there are lots of things we can do to improve the process, those suggestions would also be helpful. Yes, we could use a ram press, and we do plan to test one in the first quarter of next year, but right now I have to measure this process and need to know what is reasonable productivity?
The potters currently throw between 5 and 15 cylinders per hour when throwing and trim at about twice that rate. My feeling is this is low, but I don't know if that's a reasonable belief, and what is a reasonable expectation of performance?
The hand builders assemble from 3 to 5 mugs per hour. My feeling is this is very low, but again... Typically 2 or 3 mugs per hour is achieved when multiple tiles have to be attached to the mug. A rate of 4 or 5 mugs per hour is achieved when only a single tile is attached to the mug. Again, I lack experience in a multi-potter production environment and so I don't know if my thinking is accurate or in line with industry norms.
Hand builders perform extrusion tasks, slab rolling, and tile making tasks separate from assembly tasks.
Each position has studio maintenance responsibilities which affect daily production, but not hourly. Maintenance is generally conducted at end of shift and involves cleaning assigned work areas and common areas as part of ongoing dust abatement efforts. All up surfaces are wiped down, filters changed, floors mopped, HEPA vac, etc.
Your insights would be most helpful...

I need to pick the collective genius of the CAD family on a concept for a Junior Cornerstone course for higher ed students. Briefly, cornerstone courses are team taught, interdisciplinary, and cross-curriculum. The courses are generally a full semester long and intended to challenge students to stretch beyond their particular major/minor area of study. Note: the institution is Belmont University with a strong music, music business, and entrepreneurial business programs.
Here is the concept. A class/community of students would do research on the history of ceramic musical instruments, select instruments (i.e. (drum,flute, udu, rattle, water whistle, etc.) to construct, actually build/fire their ceramic instruments, compose a musical work using only their projects, and would either record their work or perform it publicly (or both). The rubric for the course would evaluate the research (writing), technical skill (building the ceramic instrument - recording the work), creativity (the instrument & the musical score), musical composition (the score), and the individual and/or collective recorded music. The likely textbook would be Barry Hall's From Mud to Music.
My questions:
Does this sound (no pun intended) like a fun/challenging course?
What would you add to the course to make it more interesting?
What challenges would you anticipate,particularly the ceramics process?
Is there already a course syllabus that someone is using at another institution?
Thanks all!
Paul

Dear Clay Friends:
If you had five minutes to tell a ClayStory, what story would you tell? We want to hear you tell it live, on stage, at NCECA 2015!
For those of you who are planning on attending NCECA 2015 in Providence, Rhode Island, I have some exciting news to share. I'd like to ask you to join Steven Branfman and myself along with some outstanding potters for an evening of storytelling around the theme of clay. The 90 minute event is scheduled for 8 pm on Thursday, March 26, at the Omni Hotel, and takes place just before the annual Potter's Jam. A dozen or so potters will be given a maximum of 5 minutes to tell a clay story.
We have created a website,
http://www.claystories.org
- please check out the site and consider adding your submission so that you get a chance to be one of 12 potters who will tell a story. The topic can be anything, so long as it is related to clay. Your age, gender, amount of experience with clay, etc. are irrelevant. It's all about the story! We would like to have as diverse a panel of storytellers as we can possible assemble.
You can also augment your story with photographs that will be displayed on the big screen while you tell your story. Your story may be funny, it may be sad, it may be poignant, it may involve the fire department, etc.etc. Seems like any time two or more potters get together, interesting things can and do happen!
I know that we are all super busy right now and don't have much time for anything else. But, no worry - the deadline for entries is Feb. 1st, 2015. We will announce the full lineup on Feb. 15.
Best wishes for a safe and rewarding journey through the busy weeks leading up to the holidays!
Thanks, Owen Dearing and Steven Branfman
PS If you don't mind, please pass along the website link along to anyone you know who may be interested.